09 April 2011

Our attempts today to lead a "Warbler Walk" at South Padre with Michael Retter were thwarted somewhat by the distinct lack of many warblers, although a nice camera-shy male Blackpoll Warbler was a new arrival (and my first this year) that was hanging around with the continuing Northern Parulas around the convention center. Luckily though South Padre is never dull and we tucked into the waterbirds instead, which as ever there were incredibly confiding: Sora showed off in one area, Mottled Duck nonchalantly sat around in another, and American Golden Plover walked by a loafing Black-bellied (Grey) Plover to give nice side-by-side comparisons of these similar shorebirds. All in all a bad day at South Padre was a damn fine day anyway, and I am not finished yet.

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WHO is Sam Woods?

A pair of tits (Blue and Great) in a London park 30 years back changed my life; I became a birder, and an obsessive birder by the following weekend. Works like Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book and Richard Millington's A Twitcher's Diary helped in no small part to nurture this in my formative years.
30 years on I am still an avid birder but have also learnt to appreciate other sectors of the natural world, especially frogs and primates in particular, through the undoubted influence of David Attenborough The Great and others. I now work as a full-time professional tour leader for Tropical Birding Tours, and now reside in the Andes of Ecuador. I love my job, sharing birds with people provides every bit of a buzz as a lifebird, which, of course, still creates a wave of excitement every time. I have been lucky enough to see well over 6550 bird species on my travels, which does not make me any more talented than anyone else, just one that is always greedy and impatient for more, which has taken me to all seven continents, and always yearning for that ONE...MORE...B-I-R-D!
I use Swarovski binoculars & scope, & shoot with Canon 7D and Canon 400m f5.6L lens.